Two cops sent to judicial custody in Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case

Deputy superintendent Tarun Barot and police inspector Bharat Patel were arrested last week and were remanded to police custody for four days.

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AHMEDABAD: A special CBI court on Thursday sent two cops to jail in connection with the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.

Deputy superintendent Tarun Barot and police inspector Bharat Patel were arrested last week and were remanded to police custody for four days.

As their custodial interrogation was over, additional chief judicial magistrate for CBI, H S Khutwad sent them to judicial custody. They will be produced before the court again after 14 days.

The CBI did not seek further remand of the two cops, though they continued to complain that the investigators did not ask them a single question and they were made to sit without being asked anything till late hours during police custody. But they refused to submit a pursis before the court in this regard.

Before these two cops, IPS officer GL Singhal and DySP J G Parmar were arrested in the case. The magisterial court did not grant their remand. Hence, the CBI has filed revision applications seeking their custodial interrogation. A special CBI judge Geeta Gopi is to decide on these applications on Friday.

Besides, a commando who was attached to Barot at the time of encounter, Anaju Chaudhary has been arrested and remanded to police custody.

Four persons including Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in the alleged fake encounter near Kotarpur waterworks in the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

After the alleged shootout, these four were dubbed as Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, who were on a mission in Gujarat to kill chief minister Narendra Modi in order to avenge the 2002 riots.